


All the Stars Align

by nairwal



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Crowley just needs some breathing space, Love Confessions, Love Poems, M/M, Poetry, Short, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 22:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20021839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nairwal/pseuds/nairwal
Summary: Aziraphale finds poems. Or is it that the poems are finding him?





	All the Stars Align

**Author's Note:**

> Another title with a line taken directly from a One Direction song? I can’t help myself. From ‘Once In A Lifetime’:
> 
> “When I close my eyes  
> All the stars align  
> And you are by my side”

The first poem shows up on a torn scrap of paper. It sits, slightly crumpled, on one of the shelves in Aziraphale's bookshop, stuck between two very old, very dusty tomes on witchcraft.

Aziraphale adjusts his glasses as he picks it up, and he reads.

_For my heart is only a flower_

_And you are the sun which feeds it_

His eyes trace the neat writing again and again, but Aziraphale does not recognise it. He has always been able to place an author of any given piece, however this time, he cannot put a name to the sweet prose.

Instead of dwelling on the words, Aziraphale folds the paper and tucks it into his suit pocket for safe-keeping. 

*

The second poem is found hidden away and pressed between the thick, yellow pages of a tatty nineteenth-century issue.

It is scrawled with dark, splotchy ink in the empty space around the printed text.

_You tear me apart,_

_I enjoy it_

_But you put me back together again_

_Each time_

_My pieces are in your hands_

Aziraphale presses his lips together in a concealed smile. He likes this one. Though, perhaps not as much as the last. 

Once more, no author or poet springs to mind. Aziraphale would love to match these words to a face but the anonymity, in a sense, adds to the emotional tug and pull of the words, and he thinks about them for the rest of the day, deep into the late hours of the night once the sun has gone down, and he tucks it away into an empty drawer when it rises.

*

Aziraphale finds the third poem as he opens the front door of the bookshop, having been out for fresh air and a bagel; a white, rectangular envelope jammed into the small gap between the bottom of the door and the ground beneath.

He bends to retrieve it, ripping it open when the envelope shows nothing of interest. There is no stamp, no wax seal; no address nor name or date. Nothing but textured, white card. The letter inside has been folded twice and the lines are written in large, blocky lines.

_I’d come with you to the top_

_Only to fall to the depths_

_When you drop my hand_

_\- And my only support -_

_Over and over_

Aziraphale stands in the biting January winds for a few, long, drawn-out minutes, reading the message over and over again until the words are repeating like a mantra in his mind. No author...

He holds it close to his chest as he enters the bookshop. Later, over a mug of hot chocolate, he reads it again.

*

Crowley has been distant lately. Aziraphale does not know why. It disheartens him, Crowley’s apparent and new-found need for isolation, but he does not question it. Aziraphale hopes his silence is taken as support rather than disregard or bitterness.

Feeling lost, Aziraphale spends his days cleaning the bookshop by hand or taking long walks through the busy parks nearby. He visits Anathema and Newt when he can; drinks strong tea and eats madeira cake, and listens to the imaginative stories as told by the children of Tadfield. 

He reads and eats biscuits alone in his bookshop, but without Crowley, things are slow and deafeningly quiet.

And then the next poem comes to his attention.

A yellow sticky-note, stuck to one of the tables in the shop, somehow having escaped Aziraphale's eyes until now. The writing is cursive; elegant. Not what had been on the letter in the envelope or on the others. Aziraphale’s heart beats low in his throat as he peels it away.

_Distance makes the heart grow fonder,_

_Silence turns it sour_

This one is unkind, in a way — turns Aziraphale's stomach — not as warm as the rest had been. Where the other poems are kept, in their drawer; Aziraphale does not want this one to be sat alongside them. It simply does not fit.

He tears it into pieces and vanishes them with a wave of his hands. 

*

Not two days later, a white and grey homing pigeon taps its short beak against one of the large windows of the bookshop. Aziraphale’s attention is drawn immediately - the silence around him an uncomfortable one, born from Crowley’s absence, is easily interrupted.

Aziraphale is worried in a way that seeps into his ancient being; he cannot sense where Crowley has gone, so he cannot be certain he is safe. But he trusts that Crowley knows what he is doing. Aziraphale hopes that he will return with a clear head, as it were.

As he allows the pigeon inside the bookshop by allowing it to balance on his outstretched fingers, he unravels the message that it carries from around its neck, and his skin forms goose bumps.

_A single thought of you_

_My love_

_Fills my soul with the need for more_

_When I only deserve_

_Much less_

Aziraphale’s chest feels very heavy. He reads it again, making sense of the words, of their meaning. The sudden change in emotion from the previous poem. The sadness this one holds.

The pigeon coos low and soft and presses a feathered wing into Aziraphale’s fingers where they rest over the tiny note; and so Aziraphale reads it out for the bird, too. It coos once more as though in thanks.

Eventually, he sets the note down and feeds the pigeon a small treat in reward. He opens the bookshop door and sends the pigeon out into the open grey sky; snowflakes falling as the month of February begins, and wonders, if only for a moment, just who it is returning to.

*

Aziraphale is reading a local newspaper in a small café to distract himself from the mounting boredom of day’s spent alone when his eyes catch on a small article, dwarfed by and in-between the unsightly advertisements on the last few pages of said paper.

He squints, glasses not on him.

_I miss you,_

_And no number of stars can replace_

_Nor substitute_

_Your light_

Aziraphale smiles slowly to himself as the words wash over him. Their simple effectiveness keeps his smile alive and he feels warm with their silent promise.

He wonders at what point he began taking these poems as dedications to himself.

Aziraphale goes for a walk to clear his head and the cold air helps, just a little.

*

Crowley comes home.

He barges through the front door of the bookshop at two in the morning with a handful of letters in his grip. Aziraphale cannot take the racing beat of his heart at the sight of him.

“Hello, my dear,” He greets quietly, uncertainly, and Crowley storms over to where he sits. The wariness in his face is evident - the line of his mouth pulled taut; eyes dark and gaunt and glassy.

Crowley drops the papers onto Aziraphale’s desk without much fanfare. Some miss their target and fall to the ground, pooling at their feet and over their shoes.

Aziraphale glances at the few that made it to the the desk. They are a mix of torn pieces of paper, white and yellow, and some encased in envelopes; all crinkled messages, each with varying lengths and types of handwriting.

“Read them,” Crowley instructs. His voice is pleading. It is hurt; lost, “Please. Read them.”

Aziraphale does not think twice, does not have to hear Crowley ask again. He reads them all. The pile on the desk and then those on the floor. All twenty-three of them, slowly, painstakingly. Every word and every syllable.

Some are loving.

_You surround me_

_Like air_

_In my lungs_

_I breathe you - always_

Some are aching.

_I fear what I have,_

_For what I have_

_Leaves me breathless_

_With love_

_And with longing_

One makes Aziraphale smile.

_Words fail me_

_And yet poems_

_Fucking poems_

_Seem to help me find them_

Another makes tears spring to his eyes.

_I remember only one fall_

_That ached like this one_

But they are all one thing: Crowley’s.

His penmanship, his words, his feelings. His thoughts and expressions. All meant for Aziraphale. All reaching out to him some way, some how.

Crowley, who stands with his eyes darting around the room in a show of nerves. Crowley, with his hands fidgeting restlessly around his person; his shoulders held tight and straight, and his chin tucked into his chest. Aziraphale watches him in the dim, orange light of the bookshop.

“I went to Alpha Centauri.” Crowley shakes his head. He laughs harshly, mirthless. “I missed you so much.”

Aziraphale yearns. Like he has done for so long, it seems. But he stands, this time.

His movement, the sound of the chair scraping against old wood, startles Crowley. His head jerks up. His eyes meet Aziraphale’s own. They widen, widen...

The kiss is soft. Slow, warm, gentle.

Aziraphale wants so desperately to hold Crowley in his hands, so he does. He cradles his face with his fingers; the tips of which press into the short hairs at the base of his neck and at his temples; his earlobes, too.

Aziraphale kisses him again and again and again, keeping it slow and welcoming Crowley’s meeting pressure as the taller man finally kisses back. His returning kisses are a little desperate, very intense, but their fervour is welcome.

Aziraphale thanks him wordlessly for the poems and the confessions through his touch, through how he tilts his head left then right, deepening their connection. He holds Crowley close and hopes that it is enough.

For a man of so many words, it seems that right now, Crowley has none. Aziraphale does not mind at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.
> 
> [Tumblr](https://lawriand.tumblr.com/other). [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/nairwal).


End file.
